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Why They Did It: Madoff and Enrons Fastow Explain the Biggest Frauds in U.S. History

Do company wealthcommit economic crimes and executivespeople who currently have status?

Eugene Soltes provides some intriguing theories in his new novel, Why They Do It: Inside the Head of the White Collar Criminal, for example, belief that several senior people work in an ethical “grey zone.” An associate professor at Harvard Business School, Soltes posits which they step the linebreaking over making prohibited insider tradesin component because they depend on instinct or bookkeeping rules. And, it seems, their instincts stink.

More powerful than his attempts that are analytic, the uncommon research process of the writer should attract on a big crowd to his novel. With an excellently innocent eagerness, Soltes wrote letters to some four dozen condemned offenders, including Ponzi scheme legend Bernard Madoff to Andrew Fastow, late of Enron Corp., to Dennis Kozlowski, once the CEO of Tyco International Ltd. Lo and behold, several of them wrote back.

Soltes therefore had the chance to to pepper his novel with the first person observations and self justifications of a brilliant Murderers’ Row of white collar crime. Below are a few examples:

Illinois pay them all back. Guarantee.

“It is like a comedy of mistakes,” Madoff advised Soltes. “To insure the losses, I determined to take in cash from hedge funds. And in order for me to try this, I ‘d to give to some long-term scheme that I would not deliver the cash back [to investors]. I kept getting in more cash, figuring that once the marketplace enables me to do the scheme, I ‘ll have the ability to repair it.” & nbsp;This Is the traditional explanation of supposedly well intentioned Ponzi masters: In The Course Of Time the rip-off will miraculously create gains and every one will be created entire. 78, Madoff, h AS lots of time as he is serving a 150- year prison sentence.

Oops, I forgot about right and incorrect.

“Easily had the character I ought to have had, I ‘d have mentioned, ‘timeout,’ but I did not,” Fastow, the former Enron chief economic officer is quoted as saying. “The fact is, if at any stage within my career I mentioned, ‘timeout, this is [expletive]. I cannot do it,’ they’d have simply located another CFO. But that does not justify it. It’d be like declaring it really is okay to kill someone because basically did not do it somebody else would have.” Fastow, 54, served six years for his part in setting up off-balance sheet “special-purpose entities” employed to hide Enron’s correct monetary problem.

Attribute my ego.

“The board would give me such a thing I needed,” Kozlowski informed Soltes. “We considered our own press. With myself and otherseven the boardyou become have slightly by your own conceit, and you actually believe you’ll be able to do something.” 6 9, Kozlowski, was convicted in 2005 of offenses associated with his receiving 10s of vast amounts in bonuses that were unauthorized. He served six-and-a-half years in jail house.

They ‘established’ up me.

“It’s all portion of the largest theft due to an U.S. securities company in US history,” Robert Allen Stanford, 66, whined to the writer. Stanford.edu is serving 1 10-yr prison sentence after being convicted of costs associated with his investment company running as a Ponzi scheme. “I am going to win this war,” he added. “Make no blunder, Eugene, I will be going to win.” (A federal appeals courtroom turned down him in Oct.)

Having read Soltes’s reports of these and other whitecollar figures, one response comes into focus especially others to the issue of why they made it happen of the writer. They did it because they believed they could get a way with it.